Vengeful Pursuit
by SkulduggeryCain
Summary: After Darquesse is no longer a problem, Skulduggery heads out to find China Sorrows. She killed his family, sent him to his death, and has travelled around the globe just to get away from him. But now she's back within reach, and he's not going to pass up the opportunity to exact his revenge. OOC Chinduggery :D


China Sorrows sat in a dingy hotel room in London. It wasn't pretty, and it wasn't pleasant, but she didn't care about those things anymore. Her survival was the only thing that mattered.  
-After Skulduggery Pleasant had learnt the truth of her actions in the war, he had turned away and left. He hadn't killed her, he hadn't hurt her, he hadn't even said a word. But he didn't have to. His pain and fury were quite evident by the way he walked away. He had given her a careless chance to escape and she had taken it. That didn't mean to say, however, that she didn't want him to find her. Because she did. She wanted him to find her, allow her to speak, and then kill her.  
-Because that's what she deserved.  
-All her life, after she had handed over the Pleasant family, she had regretted it and tried to become a better person. Though she was still manipulative and untrustworthy, she was no longer as driven by the need to preserve herself and she had learnt to feel compassion and friendship. Unknowing of her deeds, Skulduggery had brought his new partner to meet her, a one Valkyrie Cain, and in Valkyrie Cain China saw things that she would rather have avoided.  
But she couldn't.  
-She knew, of course, why Skulduggery hadn't fought as much as he could have done to keep the girl away from magic and the entire subculture behind her mortal world. Though she was strong-willed, courageous and a tiny bit ignorant, it wasn't Valkyrie Cain herself that kept her by the skeleton's side. Deep in that man China knew he longed for a daughter, someone to remind him of his lost child, and Valkyrie fitted that image perfectly enough. Skulduggery not only kept her by him because she wanted to stay, but because he wanted her to stay as well, for more reasons than one.  
-Five years passed since that first meeting and still China's secret remained safe. But it was in rocky perils at that point and the truth was bound to come out eventually.  
-In the sixth year, the secret was revealed, and not before a big court or jury like China had expected; no, it had poured from an idiot's mouth right before the skeleton and his partner themselves. While Skulduggery hadn't glanced back as he strode silently away, China had seen Valkyrie do so, and she could still clearly picture the look of betrayal and anger in the young girl's face. It made her hate herself even more.  
-After that, she'd fled. She'd abandoned her precious library, the life she'd built up, and she'd got on the closest flight and left. Though she wanted her end to come, her instincts to protect herself returned and she ran across the continents in the hope of surviving. Wherever she went, the truth followed, and gradually all of the spies and allies China had accumulated over the years left her by herself and didn't care as to what happened to her. Only one informant stayed, in the end, and this informant only stayed, China knew, because he knew how much she regretted her actions.  
-Often he told her through a private phone what was happening in Ireland. Apparently Skulduggery hadn't rushed to find her, as she'd expected; instead, he had kept with the impending threat of Darquesse and had begun to battle against it with everything he had. He had that as his purpose, as his reason for being, at least until the threat had disappeared. When the fight was over, and Darquesse was no longer a problem, he had had to find himself a new purpose. And naturally, three months later, he had remembered the truth about his family's deaths and had begun his search for China Sorrows. China hadn't heard anything from that informant since. She'd thrown everything away that could identify her and had just kept running. Until now.  
-It had been four years since she had first left Ireland and begun her new life. She'd changed her name, her appearance, even her signature. But there were things that she just couldn't change. Her eye and hair colour, for example. Magic as she was, she'd carved symbols long ago to preserve the beauty of those two aspects of herself. In doing so, she had made them constant for eternally. She couldn't dye her hair, put in coloured contact lenses, anything like that. Mortal things couldn't help her, and her magic couldn't be reversed. If Skulduggery saw her, even now he'd recognise her. And that scared her to death.  
-Four years after leaving, she now sat in that dingy hotel room in London and wondered about her life. Was there any point to it? Did she have a reason to live anymore? She doubted she did. The only thing she lived to do was run away.  
-As she sat back on the single bed, a breeze fluttered through the window and ruffled the curtains against the window panes. Instantly China shot up, eyes wide in the window's direction, but after nothing leaped through and shot her dead, she sat back down with shaky legs. She had overreacted, that was all. Just a breeze. Not a certain elemental skeleton coming to exact his revenge upon her.  
-She'd wondered about this, of course. London. Could she bear to come back to somewhere so close? She had been certain it was a terrible idea, that she should have stayed in Australia, but something drew her in and pushed her onto the plane. And here she was, shaking and staring at a window.  
She laughed.  
-It wasn't just a quiet laugh, either. It was a _roar._ Everything that she had done, everywhere she had been – it was all laughable. She should have stayed where she was and got what she deserved. But she had been too much of a coward.  
China stood up and went to the dressing table. Upon it lay a few of her measly possessions; a hairbrush, a hair tie, a bottle of perfume and some make-up tubes. Sitting upon the small stool, she looked into the mirror at herself. Her eyes were framed by black bags and her face was taut and strained. She couldn't do this forever. She just couldn't. It had to end.  
-With this thought in mind, China began improving her appearance. Starting with her hair and then moving onto her face, China resurrected the beautiful image which had once been the norm. It took only a few minutes, but when she was finished, she looked perfect. It was time.  
-And then, as if it were made of velvet, a voice:  
-"Hello, China."  
-China whirled around with such ferocity that she sent the stool onto its side and her belongings onto the floor. Her eyes opened wide with terror, and at the sight of her face, the skeleton detective took a purposeful step forward. He was here.  
-"It's nice to see you again, China." His words were slow and menacing. China was glued to the spot and couldn't even raise an arm to defend herself. She just sat still and watched him as he continued rambling.  
-"I suppose, really, it's _not_ nice to see you again. I mean, you _did _hand my family and I over to the enemy during a massive world-ruining war. That wasn't very nice of you, by the way. I thought I knew you better."  
-He took another step forward and cocked his head at an angle. Her mind, though frozen with shock, did manage to recall what that angle usually meant. He was smiling.  
-"Clearly, though, I didn't know you very well. I knew you well enough afterward not to trust you, but I didn't know you well enough _during _the war to stop you."  
-He stopped speaking. He cocked his head again, this time the other way, in the position which meant he was thinking. China didn't care to know what about. She just wanted it all to end, and for it to end quickly. She slowly began to compose herself, standing up, and at that the skeleton's head shot up and clocked her. She gulped. He reached up and tapped at his collar bones; she vaguely remembered what was going to happen just before it did. Waxy skin shot up out of nowhere and covered his entire head; with a sharp intake of breath she realised what face it was. It was his. _Actually _his, not a fake one like she had designed for him.  
-"I see..." her voice cracked. He looked surprised, but didn't comment, the corner of his mouth twitching ever-so-slightly.  
-"I see... you got it modified." China stammered. She looked anywhere, anywhere but straight at him, and found herself rather liking a spider's web in the corner of the room past his right knee. It was comforting.  
-"Oh, yes, do you like it?" Skulduggery gestured towards his face just as a white-toothed grin broke across it. "I decided to regain my face after Valkyrie wouldn't shut up about it. It's permanent, you know, so I always get the same one. I think she likes it better than my old ones."  
-She couldn't think of anything to say to that so she just stood still, watching him. He too returned to a state of silence, thoughtful, and finally he sighed and glanced at his wrist. To her great surprise, China saw then that the skin wasn't just localised to his head anymore. A flash of flesh showed between his glove and jacket sleeve as he inspected the ornate watch fastened around his arm. He returned to a still position, waited a few seconds, then reached up and deactivated the facade tattoo. With a slight _poof _the skin vanished leaving him once more in his skeletal form. He didn't move.  
-China couldn't take her pale blue eyes from him. He stood there, static, his hollow eye sockets watching her every move. She couldn't breathe. She'd run so far, for so long, and on the one night she'd dared to think about whether she was safe from him, he'd come. And she knew it was futile to try and get away.  
So she stayed.  
-Drawing herself to her full height and standing as tall as she could, China looked straight at the dead man and the dead man looked straight back. A few moments passed where neither said anything, but then, with a painful slowness, Skulduggery Pleasant opened his mouth once more and spoke words that defied everything China ever knew. And she almost collapsed when she heard them.  
-"I forgive you."


End file.
